A few weeks ago I had occasion to visit a rather large metroplex located
in Texas whose name I would not reveal under any circumstance even under
threat of a firing squad- Its initials are DFW.
Being bored after the conduction of a rather lengthy business session that dragged on for 30 minutes I returned to the hotel. Still bored at 9 pm, I decided to go check out the night life.
The cab driver dropped me off at this huge garish metal looking building
surrounded by four wheeled drive pic-um-up trucks parked upon what looked
like 5 acres of paved parking lot. I thought that I would at last get to
see the fabled cowpeople of legend. What an opportunity.
Upon entering this cavernous arena I was struck by the music.
I thought it would be hillbilly. I suppose if you listened real carefully
you could discern an occasional hillbilly lick. The music sounded like a
blend of modern rock and polka sung by a frenetic young man who was
gyrating all over the stage. Gyrations would be the last thing ol Ernest
Tubbs , George Jones or Merle Haggard would do.
I thought for sure that the people in that place would be country, what
with all them pick-um-up trucks parked outside and four wheel drive to
boot. I just knew they would have them for something like carrying
branding gear to some remote north forty instead of climbing up the 30
foot long, ten degree slope of their paved driveway in suburbia. (99% of
buyers of four wheel drives have about as much need for them as tropical
jungle dwellers have for a snowmobile) I suppose there is this
psychological need to keep up with the neighbors or maybe if the roads
are destroyed by nuclear bombs, one might get around a little better. In
any case, I was disappointed in not finding any genuine cowpeople and
I'll tell you why.
Yes, those patrons of the club appeared at first blush to be genuine but
upon close scrutiny I feel they were duping each other and the public at
large. Close scrutinizer that I am, I immediately noticed their boots.
Yes, this is a dead giveaway. Most of them were made of some exotic bird
skin with little dimples on them and were not the color of cowhide. They
were also clean and shiny-a dead giveaway.
I know wherewith I speak on this subject of boots, as I was driving one
night near Sonora, Texas listening to the only radio station that was
clear. You know the kind---local AM station whose signal fades 5 miles
from the transmitter. After the announcer declared "come one, come all.
It's half price night at the dairy queen tonight ", he then proceeded to
educate the listeners about cowboy boots. He sounded like a real cowboy.
He said in his thick Texas drawl that no real man would ever buy any
boots that were not made of genuine 100% cowhide and of two colors-black
or brown. Anything else was a genuine fake and only worn by effete
wannabes who know so little about cows and horses that they would get on
a horse backward and think that milk comes from a plant that manufactures
it.
Armed with this tidbit of wisdom, I knew in this big dancehall, there
were no cowboys. Furthermore, they all had big bellys attempting to cover
that obvious defect with large long sleeve garishly painted shirts.
Everyone knows that a real cowboy is lean due the obvious fact of working
cattle all day on a bowl of beans. These shirts were so garishly tacky
with colored patterns that they would motivate a mandrill to mate and
those guys wearing those shirts would not have been safe in mandrill
country. (Mandrills have vivid red behinds considered sexy to other
mandrills)
Another clue was the fact that everybody had their cowboy hats on too. A
real cowboy would have taken it off indoors. Hell, even I know that it
doesn't rain and the sun doesn't shine inside a Texas dancehall. I do,
however, think there is a reason why they wear them indoors-it makes the
shorties appear a little taller and covers the head of the baldies so
consequently wearing a cowboy hat indoors fills some innate need they
have arising out of some deep seated complex about height and hair.
Sigmund Freud, if alive, could better explain it.
Almost all had a little leather case affixed to their belts. It was worn
on the side. I suppose it was a Freudian substitute for a pistol holster.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I then thought that maybe these
little leather cases housed wire cutters. Everyone knows that cowboys are
always on the range mending fences. My curiosity got the best of me so I
asked the guy what he was carrying in his little case. I might have
known. It was fingernail clippers. Why sho nuff you all, a real Texas
cowboy would die of embarrassment by having dirty or long fingernails.
How positively naive could I be! They aren't cowboys from Wyoming
for sure.
The fun began with the music. Real cowpeople dance together.
These imposters were in military like formation six to eight deep and
wide looking like an overweight aerobic class. They were attempting to
dance in lock step but failing miserably. I discovered white people can't
dance. I knew they couldn't jump cause I saw the movie. I also knew they
couldn't play football or basketball as I watch TV. Now I'm sure they
can't dance after visiting that club.
Oh maybe a few have rhythm, but the vast majority move like mechanical robots
with zero relation to the usic. Their faces were wrinkled up from concentration and
focus but it as useless. The music would enter the ears and pass through the brain
but then would be short circuited and not be articulated with theirbodies. That's the
scientific reason alto' I don't want to get to technical for the readers.
I hung around this place an hour or so ,observing this 20th century
anomaly. I should have known that cowboys ride horses and not four
wheeled drives. I also should have known that 99% of Texas is posted and
you can't enter much land other than known streets and parking lot,
unlike those few western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Montana etc,
where you can get lost with your four wheeler.
I came away disillusioned. The music was rock. The boots were not
genuine cowhide and they were were too clean and not genuine.
They couldn't keep time with the music like a cowboy could at a square dance.
The garish shirts were made in Taiwan with mandrill mating colors.
Their little leather cases on the held fingernail clippers. They didn't remove their hats upon
entering. Real cowboys know that hats are only worn outside for
protection from the sun and rain.
I now know as an absolutely irrefutable fact that the closest anybody in
the DFW area has been to a cow is the milk stain on the upper lips you
seen seen in the milk advertisements. One possible explanation of this fake
cowboy ethos is most of them probably took the TV show Dallas to heart.
Hell J.R. Ewing doesn't even own or ride a horse. He owns and rides four
different Harley Davidson motorcycles. Don't they even read the
personality section of the Sunday supplement?
Bob White in "cowboy" country.
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